Not down and out in NYC

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NEW YORK First, Anthony Weiner vaulted back from an embarrassing “sexting” scandal to become a top mayoral contender. Now, Eliot Spitzer has sprinted onto the comeback campaign trail in New York City, where this fall's races are turning into a mini-Olympics of political redemption.

So Weiner, just two years after a tweeted underwear photo spelled the end of his congressional career, jumps into the race for the nation's biggest mayoral job less than two months before the deadline to get on the ballot? Well, Spitzer embarked Monday on something just as audacious, if not more so: Only four days before the deadline, he launched a bid to become city comptroller, asking voters to look past the prostitution scandal that cost him the governor's mansion five years ago in one of politics' steepest falls from power.

While the two Democrats insist they're not looking at one another's examples, they're drawing from a common playbook: ask voters for forgiveness, tell them you've changed and focus on what you can do for the city.

“What I'm looking for is a chance to be heard. I want the voters to listen to what I've done, look at the record that I developed as attorney general, as an assistant district attorney, as governor, and say, ‘This guy understood the public interest,' ” Spitzer said at a Manhattan subway stop during his first public campaign appearance, where a heckler and some Spitzer supporters tried to outshout each other while the candidate talked up his plans to make the city's top financial office into a muscular watchdog.

“New Yorkers, as good souls, have a sense of forgiveness,” he added. “But whether or not they forgive me is a whole separate issue.”

The prospect of both Spitzer and Weiner – who were some of the state's best-known and most driven politicians before their respective downfalls – on the same ballot, at least in September's primary, could give the contest an undertone of being a referendum on how much and how soon voters can be asked to excuse.

Voters' response so far has been fairly encouraging for Weiner: He's polling at or near the top of a crowded Democratic mayoral field. As for Spitzer, New Yorkers expressed mixed feelings as they digested the news of his re-emergence.

Spitzer said he thought about entering the race for months and decided just this weekend, leaving him only four days to collect 3,750 voters' signatures needed to get on the ballot. He plans to finance his own campaign.

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